At final Shootout, Coach McCarthy finally gets a championship

After the trophies had been handed out following the final women's game in Great Alaska Shootout history, a beaming UAA coach Ryan McCarthy clutched the giant championship gold pan like it was a lifeline. He gave it a little shake, almost to make sure it was real, and took in the scene as he stood near center court at the Alaska Airlines Center before posing for photos with his team.

This is McCarthy's sixth season as the head coach, and Thursday's championship game marked the fifth time he had led his team into the Shootout finale — but the first time he and the Seawolves left as champs.

McCarthy is 35, young by college coaching standards, yet this moment seemed like a long time coming.

"I grew up going to every single Shootout game," McCarthy said after UAA's 59-53 victory over Tulsa. "I remember sitting at Sullivan Arena dreaming that some day I'd maybe be able to be a part of that."

McCarthy was born across the street from UAA at Providence hospital and was raised in Birchwood. He was UAA's second choice as a coach in 2012, when the man hired instead of him left after less than a month on the job, without ever coaching a game.

He replaced Tim Moser, who in seven seasons coached UAA to never-before-seen glory, including four straight Shootout titles and two Division II Final Four appearances, before leaving in the spring of 2012.

"When I first got to UAA I had to go into this office that was full of gold pans and I thought to myself … we'd be lucky to get one," McCarthy said. "(Staff member) Tony Houston told me 'Some day your wall's gonna be full of those,' and I said, yeah, OK.

"And now it is. But it's been missing one of those big ones."

Only the Shootout champions get the big gold pan. The runners-up get smaller ones, and McCarthy had collected four of those.

The first came in his first season at UAA. With a team decimated by departures — a number of top players quit when Moser left — and with little time to regroup after being hired in mid-August — McCarthy made the most of what talent he was left with. He needed to recruit walk-ons to be able to conduct 5-on-5 scrimmages during practice.

He had dreamed about returning to Anchorage to coach the Seawolves, but once it happened he wondered if he was ready. He was 29, and he'd never been a head coach for a full season.

"As a young coach, I didn't know if I was going to be the guy who was gonna get it done," he said.

In McCarthy's first Shootout, UAA beat North Dakota State in the first round before falling to Utah State by 10 points in the championship game. At the post-game press conference, McCarthy choked back tears as he described the pride he felt for his players, for his university, for his hometown.

Thursday, the emotions again nearly overwhelmed him, for all the right reasons. McCarthy is 139-26 early in his sixth season, and two seasons ago the Seawolves came one win away from winning the national championship. This season's Seawolves are the nation's second-ranked team in Division II, and a crowd of 1,828 on Thursday fell in love with them.

The Seawolves have four Alaskans on their 12-team roster — Tara Thompson of Dimond, Hannah Wandersee of Kodiak, Nicole Pinckney of Chugiak and Tennae Voliva of East — and all made contributions this week. Sitting on the bench with McCarthy are three more Alaskans — assistant coaches Shaina Afoa of Dimond and Alysha Devine of Wasilla and volunteer coach Patrick Flanigin, who more than 30 years ago played for the Anchorage Northern Knights of the old Continental Basketball Association.

And now they have one of the big gold pans.

"It means so much. I almost got emotional out there on the floor," McCarthy said. "When you pour your heart into something, you get an opportunity to get your heart broken or fall in love again."

No broken hearts this time. Only tears of joy.

This column is the opinion of sports editor Beth Bragg. Reach her at bbragg@adn.com